The application of magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopy at progressively smaller length scales may eventually permit chemical imaging of spins at the surfaces of materials and biological complexes. In particular, the negatively charged nitrogen-vacan
cy (NV-) centre in diamond has been exploited as an optical transducer for nanoscale nuclear magnetic resonance. However, the spectra of detected spins are generally broadened by their interaction with proximate paramagnetic NV- centres through coherent and incoherent mechanisms. Here we demonstrate a detection technique that can resolve the spectra of electron spins coupled to NV- centres, namely substitutional nitrogen (NS) and neutral nitrogen-vacancy (NV0) centres in diamond, through optically detected cross-relaxation. The hyperfine spectra of these spins are a unique chemical identifier, suggesting the possibility, in combination with recent results in diamonds harbouring shallow NV- implants, that the spectra of spins external to the diamond can be similarly detected.
Dynamic nuclear polarisation, which transfers the spin polarisation of electrons to nuclei, is routinely applied to enhance the sensitivity of nuclear magnetic resonance; it is also critical in spintronics, particularly when spin hyperpolarisation ca
n be produced and controlled optically or electrically. Here we show the complete polarisation of nuclei located near the optically-polarised nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre in diamond. When approaching the ground-state level anti-crossing condition of the NV electron spins, 13C nuclei in the first-shell are polarised in a pattern that depends sensitively and sharply upon the magnetic field. Based on the anisotropy of the hyperfine coupling and of the optical polarisation mechanism, we predict and observe a complete reversal of the nuclear spin polarisation with a few-mT change in the magnetic field. The demonstrated sensitive magnetic control of nuclear polarisation at room temperature will be useful for sensitivity-enhanced NMR, nuclear-based spintronics, and quantum computation in diamond.
We operate a nitrogen vacancy (NV-) diamond magnetometer at ambient temperatures and study the dependence of its bandwidth on experimental parameters including optical and microwave excitation powers. We introduce an analytical theory that yields an
explicit formula for the response of an ensemble of NV- spins to an oscillating magnetic field, such as in NMR applications. We measure a detection bandwidth of 1.6 MHz and a sensitivity of 4.6 nT/Hz^(1/2), unprecedented in a detector with this active volume and close to the photon shot noise limit of our experiment.
A crucial requirement for quantum information processing is the realization of multiple-qubit quantum gates. Here, we demonstrate an electron spin based all-electrical two-qubit gate consisting of single spin rotations and inter-dot spin exchange in
a double quantum dot. A partially entangled output state is obtained by the application of the two-qubit gate to an initial, uncorrelated state. We find that the degree of entanglement is controllable by the exchange operation time. The approach represents a key step towards the realization of universal multiple qubit gates.
